Mike Szostak: Oh, the people you’ll meet along the way

Destiny’s triumph over tragedy was the kind of story that I enjoyed writing during my 36 years, 4 months and 19 days with the Providence Journal. That amazing run ended eight days ago...

By Mike Szostak

Her name is Destiny Woodbury, she teaches science at a KIPP middle school in Houston, she is 29, and she still runs track.

I met her about seven years ago, when she was a student and athlete at the University of Rhode Island. Sitting in a small conference room in the Mackal Field House, she told me her story. She grew up in Providence with her younger sister and brother. Their father was absent from their lives, and their mother was a drug addict. Destiny explained that when she was six years old she cared for her siblings, there were days with nothing to eat, child welfare authorities intervened, her grandmother eventually became involved, and her mother died of a cocaine overdose.

Destiny told me about Melissa Lipa, a science teacher who saw a spark of potential in her and guided her through Mount Pleasant High School and to the track team. She described how studying and running earned her a scholarship to URI. And with a brilliant smile of optimism, she told me of her dream to compete in the Olympics.

Destiny’s triumph over tragedy was the kind of story that I enjoyed writing during my 36 years, 4 months and 19 days with the Providence Journal. That amazing run ended eight days ago when I left my laptop on my editor’s desk after filing my account of Brown’s 41-14 victory over Bryant, a fitting finale because I had written more stories about Brown and Bryant football than anybody on the staff, and their first game against each other was my last.

For more than three decades, I got paid to go to games from pros to high school. I talked to superstars, sports heroes and kids, and then told their stories to you. I wrote bowling notes and X-Games features; deadline stories on America’s Cup, Stanley Cup, Davis Cup and Fed Cup; accounts of classic games from NBA Finals and high-school finals; ski stories from Yawgoo Valley, Waterville Valley and Les Trois Vallees; compelling stories from locker rooms and court rooms. Does it get any better than that?

I was fortunate to write for a newspaper that covered sports in Rhode Island, New England, the nation and, at times, the world, and for readers who are among the most ardent and knowledgeable sports fans anywhere.

My favorite assignments? It’s difficult to top five Winter Olympics. In 1980, I was in the arena in Lake Placid when the unheralded American hockey team stunned the heavily favored Russians, 4-3, and two days later beat the Finns for the gold medal. U-S-A! And in 1998 I was in Nagano, Japan, when the U.S., led by skaters from Providence College and Brown, Sara DeCosta of PC and Katie King of Brown among them, defeated archrival Canada for the first women’s Olympic gold medal. Talk about bookends!

I saw East German Katerina Witt skate and Jamaican bobsledders crash in Calgary in 1988, Julie Parisien of Maine finish fourth in the slalom in Albertville in 1992, Tommy Moe race to downhill gold in Lillehammer in 1994 and Picabo Street weep while singing our national anthem after skiing to super-G gold in ’98.

It’s also difficult to top the 17 seasons I covered the Boston Celtics, from the unforgettable teams of the mid-1980s to the lottery teams of M.L. Carr and Rick Pitino. To chronicle the basketball battles of the Big Three of Larry Bird, Kevin McHale and Robert Parish with the Lakers of Magic Johnson, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and James Worthy, the Sixers with Charles Barkley, the Pistons of Isiah Thomas and Bill Laimbeer, the Hawks and Dominique Wilkens, and the Bulls with Michael Jordan, Scottie Pippen and Dennis Rodman was the best.

I’ll always remember Bird’s steal of Thomas’ inbounds pass to Laimbeer with five seconds left and his feed to Dennis Johnson for the reverse layup that won Game Five of the 1987 Eastern Conference finals. And Bird’s fourth-quarter shootout with Wilkens in Game Seven of the 1988 Eastern Conference semifinals, when he scored 20 of his 34 points in the last 10 minutes and led Boston to a 118-116 victory. Oh, Wilkens scored 47, 14 in the fourth, on 19-for-23 shooting. And Bird’s return to a thunderous ovation midway through the third quarter of Game Five of the 1991 Eastern Conference first-round series against the Pacers after smashing his head on the parquet with two minutes left in the first half. He scored 17 points, finished with 32 and led the Celtics to victory. Again. I can still hear the deafening roar of the Boston Garden crowd.

Every July meant the Hall of Fame Tennis Championships at the Newport Casino and impressive induction ceremonies. Except for Wimbledon, there isn’t a prettier place to watch tennis.

Every fall I covered college football. The crowds were smaller than Michigan-Ohio State, but Brown-Harvard and URI-UConn could be just as exciting. I saw Brown win three Ivy League championships and URI win back-to-back Yankee Conference titles with running and passing that was dazzling. Quarterbacks Tom Ehrhardt of URI and James Perry of Brown were clutch performers in a class of their own.

In the 1990s, I spent weeks in U.S. District Judge Raymond J. Pettine’s courtroom covering the landmark Cohen v. Brown Title IX trial. At the end, after I wrote that Pettine was like a referee between the contesting lawyers, he held up a striped official’s jersey that a friend had sent him.

For close to a decade in the 2000s, I wrote features about local athletes gone off to college, and for the last five years about high-school athletes playing at home. I covered Bishop Hendricken’s record-tying seventh consecutive state basketball championship, Central Falls’ Division III championship over Johnston thanks to a pair of Antonio Mena free throws with no time left in regulation, and stirring runs by Tiverton and North Smithfield in the revived boys open basketball tournament.

I have many people to thank for such a rewarding career. Gene Buonaccorsi hired me from The Woonsocket Call in 1977 and allowed me to become a telecommuter in 1983. His successors Dave Reid, Dave Bloss, Art Martone and Mike McDermott gave me a lot of leeway in my writing. Copy editors caught my errors, and photographers and page designers gave my stories visual pop. My writing colleagues were as good as they get, especially columnist Bill Reynolds, with whom I tested many a story idea over the years.

Coaches, administrators and athletes — professional, collegiate and schoolboy — returned my calls and answered my questions. A special thanks to football coaches Phil Estes of Brown for 16 years of interviews and to retired head coach Bob Griffin, as gracious in defeat as he was in victory in his 17 years at URI. I could not have worked the crazy schedule this job demands without the unwavering support of my wife, Anne, and my daughters, Brooke and Kate, even if they wanted the Celtics to lose in the playoffs so I could come home.

Finally, my fellow Rhode Islanders, thank you for reading stories such as Destiny Woodbury’s and for allowing me to inform, entertain, delight and, once in a while, infuriate you for the last 36 years. I had a blast. And thank you, The Providence Journal, for making it all possible.

Mike Szostak covered sports for The Journal from May 23, 1977 to Oct. 12, 2013. He can be reached at szos@cox.net.